That's all I can tell you, Kelly dear." "She _is_ coming back, isn't she ?" "I hope so." "Don't you know ?" She looked into his anxious and miserable face and gently shook her head: "I _don't_ know, Kelly." "Didn't she say--intimate anything--" "No....

I don't think she knows--yet." He said, very quietly: "If she ever comes to any conclusion that it is better for us both never to meet again--I might be as dead as Querida for any work I should ever again set hand to.
"If she will not marry me, but will let things remain as they are, at least I can go on caring for her and working out this miserable problem of life.

But if she goes out of my life, life will go out of me.

I know that now." Rita looked at him pitifully: "Valerie's mind is her own, Kelly.

It is the most honest mind I have ever known; and nothing on earth--no pain that her decision might inflict upon her--would swerve it a hair's breath from what she concludes is the right thing to do." "I know it," he said, swallowing a sudden throb of fear.
"Then what can I say to you ?" "Nothing.